Chapter 96: It’s blood
Felix Sythias’ POV (continued):
The canteen felt heavy in my talon. Heavier than usual. I put it away and realized my legs were shaking slightly, so I laid down. I kept watching as my mana-pool grew and grew. Finally, after a minute or so, it stopped, the amount of mana having grown by half. I also felt bloated, like I’d eaten too much and was now suffering the consequences. It was a sensation I rarely got, and I didn’t like it.
Following a hunch, I inspected my body using my mana-sense, like I’d done to feel out my new organs. My hunch proved to be correct. It wasn’t just the amount of mana that had grown, but the actual mana-pool organ had gained some volume. It was small enough that I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference just by comparing sizes, but it was clear in the way it was slightly stretched and pressing up against my other organs. But even as I watched, it shrank, presumably returning to its original size. The discomforting feeling faded as it did.
I was vaguely aware Alex was watching me with concern, but I was transfixed by the sight of my mana-pool shrinking. It lasted only another few minutes until it was all the way back to the way it was before.
I opened my eyes and looked up at Alex. He was sitting right beside me and had put my head in his lap. When had that happened?. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You just… sat down and closed your eyes. Your band glowed, too. Did something happen with your mana-pool again?”
I nodded slowly, still getting used to the feeling of my larger mana-pool. It had grown more than the last two times had combined, and it was an odd sensation to suddenly have access to so much more mana. It was like I’d just flown a marathon and suddenly had all my stamina back again. “I’m okay,” I said. “My mana-pool just grew by half, and I think I know why.”
Alex caught on immediately. “The blood?” he asked. “I mean, I remember you complaining about accidentally drinking some back when we fought the dire-bear, and I suppose it could’ve been a major ingredient in the healing potion…”
I smiled at Alex. “Yeah, it’s blood.”
Alex stared at the canteen. “Why did your pool grow so much from so little, though? Didn’t you drink a lot more during the dire-bear fight? But you said your pool grew more this time? Hmm, the level difference between the monsters, maybe? We’d have to try it out.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that, but yeah, we should probably test that out. Also, I’m pretty sure I drank more blood this time. My canteen has a larger volume than you might think. It can hold almost five liters and I had it filled almost completely.”
Alex took another glance at the canteen. “I suppose you’re right. Then again, we don’t really know just how much dire-bear's blood you drank back then, so we should still test out if it was the level difference.”
I nodded vigorously. “Absolutely, there wasn’t a question about that.”
“It’s odd that it’s blood, though, don’t you think?” he asked. “I mean, everyone with a System gets stronger by just killing, and so do monsters, so why blood? I guess it holds a lot of mana, but then, so does most of your food and your pool doesn’t grow from that. It almost makes me wonder if the System doesn’t have something to do with it anyway, despite you seemingly not having one.”
I froze at the idea. Could the System actually still be helping me behind the scenes? I mean, I knew there was some weird relationship between dragons and the System—Alex’s draconic Skills were proof enough of that. You only get a prefix named after you like that either if you were incredibly strong and able to teach or if you were important somehow to the history of the Path. I was neither, but apparently my whole species was.
And now that I thought about it, it could only really be the second option. I was the last dragon left, even the System said so. So it can’t be a prefix granted for strength—I’m not weak for my age by any means, but not nearly strong enough for something like that. That left that dragons were somehow historically important. But that only created more questions, since the ‘draconic’ prefix wasn’t locked to a specific Path but applied, seemingly, to all Skills. Was the dragon species somehow historically important to the System as a whole? But how? It doesn’t make any sense. How can anyone, any species, be so important to such a monolithic and almost god-like entity?
“Felix?” Alex asked, breaking me out of my thoughts. I looked at him in confusion. “Sorry,” he said, “you drifted off again. What do you think of the idea?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s possible, maybe? There’s definitely some link between dragons and the System. But if it’s helping me, why not just work like it does for everyone else?”
Alex shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said, then took a quick swig from his bottle. It was starting to look distressingly empty. Alex noticed too and grimaced. He stood up and began packing his stuff. “Alright, I think we should keep going. Especially since you can now use your lightning breath about three times. Right?”
I nodded. “I won’t know for sure until we try it out, but I think so, yeah.”
I packed my stuff up, too, though there wasn’t much to pack. Only really my canteen and my notebook—I’d written down ideas to try out while we hunted. The first thing I planned on trying out was if level differences affected the result. It was the easiest thing to test, after all, if maybe not the thing I wanted to know the most. No, what I really wanted to test out the most, though, was if it had to be monster blood.
We stalked around for a little while until we came across another spider. It wasn’t really a great target for my experiments, but we knew how to handle it and it had a pretty decent level—a full 12 levels higher than Alex. That matched up pretty well with our target of 10 levels of difference or higher, which would grant him a slight bonus to the experience gained. We made a distraction by cutting up its webs. Then when the spider came to inspect the damage and possible threats, like the other spider had before, we struck from the bush we were hidden in. Alex again slashed its side open, and I noticed his sword cut through the chitin just a little easier than before. Then I realized my lightning breath and was surprised to find it stronger than before. It burned a slightly bigger hole and did it quicker, too. It wasn’t a lot stronger, but it was stronger.
But why? Was it because of the increase in mana, or just because I gained experience using the ability? I didn’t see how it could be the first, since the amount of mana the attack used remained the same. Still, I’d keep an eye out for any future changes.
Like expected, the spider didn’t have much blood. And the blood it did have was difficult to extract. Not something we had time for right now, so we continued on. Alex told me he gained another level, meaning he was four levels short of gaining his Path. That knowledge spurred us on, and we quickly killed another monster together, netting him another level and bringing us one step closer to our goal.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
While we stalked between the trees, a surprisingly easy task given how poor the monster’s sight here was, we came across some lower-leveled monsters as well. And with both of us wanting to test out our theory, we killed a few to catch their blood. We tried a few different methods for extraction, from me sucking on their necks like a vampire to literally trying to shake the blood out. Eventually we found it worked best to just kill them with blunt force, then slit an artery near their necks and hang them upside down from a tree, letting them drain into the canteen. I did now have a new-found respect for vampires, though. Drinking blood like that was hard.
The blood tasted even less vile this time, and I was starting to get a little suspicious at that. I knew the blood objectively tasted the same, but I found I didn’t find that taste as abhorrent as I did before. Was I just getting used to it? Or was there something more going on there? Either way, I didn’t care much. I’d be drinking a lot of blood for the foreseeable future, so anything that made that more tolerable was extremely welcome.
When I drank the blood, my mana-pool grew again, eliminating any last remaining doubts about the cause. It was definitely blood. And to neither of our surprise, my mana-pool didn’t grow nearly as much from this canteen full of blood than the previous one. Even when I accounted for the fact that my pool had already grown a lot, so any future changes would feel smaller, it had grown less than before. It wasn’t conclusive proof, but we could be pretty damn certain drinking blood from higher leveled monsters would be the way to go.
I also got that feeling of being bloated again, though it was a lot less severe this time. It was barely noticeable even, and the only reason I caught it at all was that I was paying attention to it this time. It faded again within minutes, but it worried me. For now, it was just uncomfortable, but what if I drank the blood of a monster with a really high level? Would my mana-pool organ just explode? Would it crush my other organs with its expansion? I was going to have to ask dad to help me test that out.
After our experiments, we continued on for a little while. We managed to kill another two monsters—another spider, and some kind of large cat—before I called for a break. Not only did I not want to walk around with both of us having near-empty mana-pools, Alex looked as exhausted as I felt. We’d been awake since before we went into the tunnel, and that had been hours ago. We needed sleep. There was no point in us trying to get to the water, only for us to get ourselves killed. Alex protested, saying he was so close to getting his Path, only having to get one more level. Finally, I relented. He really was close, and that way we could get to that water first thing in the morning. Still, we were almost out of mana, so we needed to rest for at least an hour.
We did so, and Alex finally ran out of water completely during the break. If it hadn’t been for my blood, we would’ve almost certainly panicked. But we did have my blood, so I made a small cut on the back of my talon—which was remarkably difficult because of my scales and I ended up having to use my teeth. Then I let it drip into his bottle.
Alex grimaced while he watched the dark red liquid fall into the bottle. “I really hate that you have to do this,” he said. “I don’t like seeing you hurt, let alone bleed, for any reason. Even a ‘good’ one like this.”
I shook my head. “It’s fine. It only stings a little bit, and it won’t cause me much pain while it heals, either. I picked that spot specifically because a cut there won’t get in the way.”
I handed him the bottle and watched with fascinated horror as Alex sniffed at the blood, then drained the bottle in a few seconds. My guess was that he was trying to taste it as little as possible. His grimace deepened, and he quickly ate a bit of jerky. At least food wasn't too big of an issue with all the monsters here. Finding something edible still took a bit of effort, but most diseases could be killed by cooking the meat, so our options were a lot less limited. Too bad boiling the blood wasn’t really a solution.
"That tasted about how I expected," Alex said. "Though it was also weirdly a bit spicy."
I raised an eyeridge. "Spicy?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I don't know how else to describe it. It was like a heat in my mouth and throat, like you get with spicy food."
Now curious, I raised my talon to my maw and licked some of the remaining blood off. It tasted… like blood. "I don't taste it," I told him.
Alex shrugged. "Well, we are still from different species. Maybe my taste buds work slightly differently."
I shrugged and continued licking my wound. This time to clean it. I felt like a hurt animal, licking my own wounds like this. But it wasn’t like we had water to clean the wound with instead, so I sucked it up. I could feel sorry for myself later.
We waited for another half hour or so, enough time for the wound to at least start closing up, before we went out again. We only had to walk for a small distance before we heard a deep growling behind us. We spun around to face the threat, only to find a puppy standing between the trees. Blood and entrails streaked its fur, and it smelled bad. It was large, too. Its head almost reached the top of the trees. How had we not heard it approaching? Even now, its heavy breathing was clearly audible despite it standing over a dozen meters away. And for that matter, why was it so close to our resting spot to begin with? Had it tracked us down?
I didn’t get much chance to think about it, as the monster charged forwards. I rolled to the left to dodge a swipe, after which I quickly sprung back to my talons to retaliate. I raked my claws over its snout, leaving long gashes of torn flesh and damaging one eye. The beast roared in anger and pain and struck at me again before I could move out of the way. Luckily, in its rage, it hadn’t aimed properly, so its claws only scraped over my scales.
The giant puppy rubbed at its ruined eye, and I took it as a moment to retreat and begin charging up my lightning breath. But either the monster noticed the glow or it didn’t like the mana building up in my maw, because its head spun to me and it charged towards me again. I had no choice but to cancel the attack; the mana dissipating into the surroundings almost instantly. I flapped my wings to get out of the way in time, but it was unnecessary—Alex had joined the fight. He had thrust his sword deep into the monster’s underside, and from its twitching leg and the faint crackle, it was clear Alex was also using his lightning magic.
It turned to strike back at Alex, but I wasn’t about to let it. I was still in the air, so I swooped down to attack it from above. I roared as I dove at the monster. At the last moment, I stretched out my hind-legs so I came in talons first. The monster turned just in time for me to smash into its snout again, my momentum and weight crushing it into the ground. I felt bone crack beneath my talons, but I knew the fight wouldn’t be over just yet.
And I was right. When I rolled away, the monster sprung back to its feet. Its head looked slightly misshapen and its other eye was just gone, but it was alive and it was angry.
From the side, I saw Alex getting back up, though I hadn’t seen what had knocked him down in the first place. He moved sluggishly, and I was a little worried about him. It was clear he was exhausted. Still, he raised his sword and sprinted at the monster. The giant puppy’s ears perked up, and it spun to attack Alex. So I jumped at its side, digging my claws deep into its flesh and knocking it over. I rode it down, even as I continued tearing at its hide. It squirmed beneath me, struggling to get free. And it was strong. I wouldn’t be able to keep it down for long.
“It’s neck!” I yelled at Alex. “Go for the neck!”
Alex, for his part, didn’t hesitate and thrust his blade forward, piercing straight through the beast’s neck. Then he slashed upwards, hard. Blood and parts sprayed out as the wolf was half beheaded. Within moments, the wolf began to thrash more frantically and I jumped off before it could accidentally injure me. I walked over to Alex so I could protect him in case something happened, but nothing did. The monster just lay there, getting increasingly frantic, gasping for air with a throat that didn’t work anymore. Panic filled the beast’s eyes as it struggled to get up and run away. It barely even managed a crawl, though.
Finally, I finished it off with the lightning breath I’d been charging since I’d jumped off the beast, obliterating what was left of its skull and killing it instantly.
I looked to the side, at Alex, to confirm the monster was indeed actually dead. I found him standing there with a slight grin on his snout, and only after did start reading a System prompt—his eyes going back and forwards across empty air. His grin widened, and he shot me a thumbs-up. The beast was indeed dead. And then his grin widened even more as he continued to read. He looked up at me again.
"I got two levels from that," he said. "I can unlock my Path now."